Looks like a two horse race, with Leigh stocking up on quality players and coaching team.

Fev not quite as ambitious and maybe need their new coach to weave some magic. If he ever had any??

Nobody else near? All over by Easter or all irrelevant because only one game counts in the end??

Fevs signings have probably been there most ambitious in history

Is that any different from SL? Two teams (Cats & Saints), one game at OT

It's definitely between those two.

Leigh will finish top, but anything can happen in the MPG
The issue is what are they all playing for...1 up 1 down? 2 down nobody up and the top 8 become part of SLII?
I see Halifax, Bradford, Fev, Leigh as the top sides.....I see Sheffield and London as the weakest

With Leigh it depends on how good their squad players are. They only have 16 players on their books plus 2 on loan currently. Their first 17 is better than anyone else but depends what they end up backing them up with.

Few have a strong squad and new coach.

No one else will be anywhere near those two IMO.

There's a buzz about Fax at the moment. They've capitalised on their re-name by having good media, some playful announcements, and have signed well. I'd say they were "best of the rest" at the moment, but it's incredibly close below the top 2. I couldn't call the order.

You could put it that way....

But the history is Fev are a club who have succeeded on their home grown talent they once had in abundance, I don't recall any spending sprees....

What they have won in their history has been due to that talent, IIRC they beat Bradford in the CC cup final and only one player was not from Fev & Pontefract....

So that nicely sets up a Question ..... Who was he??

People should take heart that the long and serious talks on this a few months back didn't lead to 2x10............

The smaller clubs have a voice on this, as such as Rimmer and Moorhouse are part of the talking shop, and I think this is no longer a "break away" issue in which SL just pick up control of 16 clubs and ignore the reduced Championships, and leave them to the RFL.

No real detail ever emerged of how it would even work, and moving forward the Championship clubs have shown they have a value, and none of them have died on the idea of reduced funding . Also any government money would only be for a united game.

Stupid Stupid idea I think we all agree?

None have shown! As often are waiting to see. How you justify that is purely survival not progression.

Months of time has passed and all talks gone nowhere, Fixtures for 12 clubs are now out, P&R has to be honoured, and can we also say TV money now allocated, so it's not actually happening and could not happen without the question being revived after this season which can only lead to the same deadlock we have on the question now.

I'm not waiting on a major headline saying 2 x 10 postponed for the time being, I'm happy to settle for the usual tactic of quietly leaving this to fade away after months of major resistance from most who have had a say in these matters....

Notwithstanding the lower TV money becoming a serious problem leading to the inability of enough clubs to make up a 12 club SL 2023, but as Championship clubs are set to battle to climb over each other to get to Superleague maybe the next question will be move to 14 in SL 2023.....

The mighty Steve Quinn (sadly RIP).

BTW Fev still have plenty of home-grown talent, a lot of it from the Lions, and will showcase plenty of it in the threequarters next year with Gaz Gale, Josh Hardcastle and Luke Briscoe.

There has been the odd spending spree, notably in the mid 1990s when a lot of money was spent on a variety of players, not all of whom worked out (notably Andy Currier and Mark Aston, for different reasons).

In more recent years the club has been more and more of a self-sustaining business thanks to significant sponsorships, use of the ground and clubhouse etc to the extent Fev are established as one of the big spenders in the Championship.

It’s definitely Leigh’s to lose next season. No other teams comes close. Leigh will replace Salford for 2023

If you had so much home grown talent, same as Leigh. Put it on the pitch and stop pitching tripe.

The problem is, loads of teams claim “home brown talent” when in reality what they mean is local amateur players they bring into the first team squad just to make up the numbers. Only St Helens, Leeds and Wigan have bona fide home grown talent

They have talent scouted ( I use the word scouted in a liberal way)..The product,the game comes from community clubs. Not these amazing academies.

Everyone starts off at a level. No academy caters for that.

Your absolutely right.

Leeds have done well scouting in the Oulton area which is just down the road from where Wakefield Trinity were promised a new ground. Some (already) top talent there of course chose to take Caddick's money and go off to North Leeds where there is not a lot of junior RL talent, and of course Michael Carter does not have such money to counter these "raids" on the Raiders.

Money and success is a great recruiting tool, top juniors are often happy to cross the Pennines to get to that, doesn't make such as Leeds brilliant at "young player development" you can buy success at all levels from the kids to seniors.....

That then is compounded by the quality talent that that does stay loyal to their local SL club eventually getting picked up by the top clubs who can offer the chance of trophies.

There's no even playing field here especially when Marquee signings allow overspending........

What a ludicrous comment, maybe think about cutting out the chippyness, eh? Somebody stated that Featherstone traditionally produced home-grown talent, and I was pointing out that that is still the case to a degree. And I mentioned three local lads who will all be playing regularly for us this year, as will Luke Cooper and Jack Bussey, who both came through the club's own junior system.

There are well-documented reasons why some Championship teams such as Fev and Leigh don't run academy/reserve teams any more, but in any case a chunk of the best youth talent in towns of Championship teams gets snapped up by the academies at Leeds/Wigan etc before they can sign for their local teams. Morgan Smith (grandson of former GB international and Featherstone legend Pete Smith), who is another local lad who will represent the club this season, was being watched by Warrington at the age of 12.

The post I was replying to was itself responding to someone posting about Fev's signings being "the most ambitious in their history", whether that's true or not, it's a fact that the club seems to be relatively prosperous in terms of finance/income, certainly compared with the glory days of the 1970s when despite winning Cups and Championships there was still a need to sell players to survive.

I'm not sure what your comment "same as Leigh" means btw - unfortunately that comment is ambiguous at best.

Not unless we sign another 6 or 7 & of sufficient quality. The current squad (in number) is way too small to get through a season.

How many players have Saints signed from Leigh East in the last 2 years, think it's 5. Think only one has made a matchday 18 squad, but hardly any players join the Centurions directly from Leigh Miners or East. There are players who from for amateur clubs in the area that is halfway from Leigh to Wigan (Hindley/Goborne) but guess what they get snapped up by Wigan, Oliver Gildart to mention at least one.

John Asiata signed for Leigh today

Dane Chisholm banned for 8 matches. Fev fans salty

This made me smile. How long have you been watching RL ?

Will there be automatic promotion to the all new Super, Super League at the end of next season, even if we go to the 2 x 10 nonsense that has been muted.
If so, it would be a good time to gain a spot in the top flight, albeit, even more difficult for ANY promoted club to survive in what would be a more competitive league.

Not that it is relevant here in any way, but do you recall how George Flanagan was banned for 10 games exclusively based on the word of a Feth player who was heard to say "I've got you now" and despite there being no video evidence even though it was a televised game?

Anyway I feel for Dane. Poor lad.